'New wave' of foot-and-mouth

LONDON, England -- The co-ordinator of the UK's battle against the spread of foot-and-mouth disease has given a pessimistic assessment of its success so far.

With evidence that the virus has spread from sheep to cattle, Chief Veterinary Officer Jim Scudamore warned on Friday of a "second wave" of cases.

The disease commonly has an incubation period of two weeks and experts argued that all cases should have shown up by now.

But such hopes have been dashed after 46 cases were recorded in the last 72 hours -- 20 of them on Friday alone, the biggest daily total so far.

"The crucial question is, are there many more (undiscovered diseased farms) and if so how many of these are incubating the disease which we have not yet found?" he said.

"And that's the question which we accept we cannot answer."

This week the European Union extended a ban on British livestock exports until March 27, suspended livestock markets for at least a week and imposed strict curbs on cross-border animal movements.

Scudamore said that control orders and the movement of livestock, which were due to end on Friday, would have to be extended and that an alternative also had to be found to the huge funeral pyres which have burnt across much of the countryside.

"To relax the controls too early could lead to a further deterioration in the situation," he said. Instead, the UK now intends that animals will be transported to special rendering plants where the animals are treated and turned into bone meal and burnt.

As a result, the government announced new plans to hand out special licences to farmers who needed to transport livestock short distances.

In particular, the move will allow farmers to bring in pregnant ewes from fields into birthing quarters and cattle which need to be milked.

The licences would only cover short movements of either half a kilometre or five kilometers.

National Farmers Union President Ben Gill said in a statement: "This will offers some farmers ... flexibility to provide the best environment for their animals while ensuring that our guard against the spread of the disease is not relaxed."

The number of outbreaks in the UK has now reached 127, most of them sheep, and almost 100,000 animals have been destroyed.

Scudamore said the disease was now also threatening the lambing season, warning that the "type O" strain of the virus was especially deadly to lambs.

There had already been four or five cases of farms seeing high lamb mortality, he said.

He warned that the problem in the sheep population could even cause markets to be postponed for some time after Britain is finally declared to be free of foot-and-mouth as recovered sheep can carry the virus in throat cells for up to nine weeks.

Sporting events continue to be affected by foot-and-mouth disease, with fears that the Grand National horse race next month could be cancelled in the same way the Cheltenham Festival has.

The Badminton Horse Trials, due to take place on May 3, have also been called off. Ireland has cancelled its Six Nations rugby union matches against England and Scotland and some major St Patrick's Day celebrations are being scrapped.

France has destroyed 35,500 animals that were imported from Britain or had come into contact with British animals.

Thousands more have been culled across the continent while vehicles arriving at French Channel ports from the UK must pass through trays of disinfectant.

At some Italian airports, passengers are required to pass through disinfectant points and Hungary has introduced its own "anti-epidemic carpet" at the country's only international passenger airport at Ferihegy, Budapest.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Foot-and-mouth cases top 110
March 9, 2001
EU battles foot-and-mouth spread
March 6, 2001
Virus sparks call to shut borders
March 5, 2001
Livestock virus controls extended
March 6, 2001
France bans animal markets
March 5, 2001
France, Belgium suspect foot-and-mouth
March 3, 2001
UK outbreak raises questions
March 3, 2001
Europe steps up disease controls
March 2, 2001

Foot-and-Mouth Disease
UK National Farmers' Union
UK Ministry of Agriculture: Foot-and-mouth
The European Commission for the Control of Foot-and-Mouth Disease
European Union: Agriculture policies
Cheltenham Racecourse - UK National Hunt Racing
The Grand National
British Horseracing Board
Badminton Horse Trials 2001

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.